


Sherlock Holmes: The Timeline

by Hunter (thehunter)



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Gen, Meta, Timelines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 19:38:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehunter/pseuds/Hunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A timeline of the events of the 2009 <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlock Holmes: The Timeline

**Author's Note:**

> Several years ago, after watching _Sherlock Holmes_ on blu-ray for the first time, I decided that it would be useful to compile a timeline of events in the film for fic-writing purposes. Every time someone got out a newspaper, I took note of the date and read as much of the article as I could. The dates and days of the week, as it turns out, are terribly, terribly muddled. I have corrected them as much as possible. 
> 
> With regard to the newspapers, the production crew must not have counted on on anyone reading them: all of their front page articles contain mostly the same text, word-for-word. In some of them they have added another paragraph or two at the beginning, but otherwise they are identical and mostly deal with Blackwood's capture. Moreover, when more than about half of the front page is shown onscreen, the article will start over from the beginning of the Blackwood section at least once. 
> 
> This timeline was originally posted to the LJ community holmeswatson09.

**September 10, 1890:** Lord Blackwood is arrested in a crypt under St. Paul's Cathedral. (Per the article, he led police on a merry chase through the catacombs subsequent to the action that we see at the beginning of the film. Ara and I have decided this was probably a fabrication on the part of a reporter desirous of making the Yard look better, because Blackwood most certainly wanted to be caught.)

Here also is a list of Blackwood's victims: Susan Willis, 18, Bethnal Green; Margaret Coils, 20, Spitalfields (misspelled in the article!); Jane Gray, 21, Whitechapel; Mary Wilson, 19, White City; Sarah Moss, 22, Whitechapel; Beatrice Church, no age or location given (saved by Holmes and Watson). These are all East End neighborhoods, terribly overcrowded and dirty, with very high crime rates--except White City, which was nothing but farmland and wasn't named or developed until 1908. Oops. It is safe to assume that Blackwood was going after lower-class girls that he thought no one was likely to miss. In the case of Beatrice Church, whose parents hired Holmes to save her, I believe that the victim was a girl of a middle-class family in a better neighborhood, as no one from Whitechapel or Spitalfields would be likely to engage the services of Sherlock Holmes even if they believed they could afford it. This would have been a deliberate move on Blackwood's part, as he wanted to be captured by Holmes and "executed" in order to further his plans.

Finally, it may interest you to know that the Blackwood family fortune was made by means of several steelworks and munitions factories in and around London. I would dearly love to know who inherited all that.

**November 13, 1890:** _The Daily Graphic_ proclaims this to be a Friday, though in reality it was a Thursday. This is the date that Watson forcibly removes Holmes from his study, where he has been locked up for two weeks. That evening, they make an abortive attempt at dinner with Mary and Holmes wins a fight at the Punchbowl.

**November 14, 1890:** Watson informs Holmes that he is an ass and brings him to Pentonville Prison, where Blackwood has asked to speak with him as his last request. Blackwood is hanged there later in the day.

**November 18, 1890:** Irene Adler hires Holmes and he sees Moriarty for the first time. The same day, Blackwood rises from the grave and Clarkie comes to fetch Holmes and Watson. Watson has his fortune told on the way to Maddison  & Haig re: the watch. They investigate the ginger dwarf's laboratory and fight with Dredger and company, then spend the night in prison. (There is no newspaper for this day in the movie; the date given here is based on the date of the _Police Gazette_ that we see when Lestrade gets Holmes out of prison.)

**November 19, ~~1891~~ 1890:** An unfortunate mistake, indeed, considering that Holmes is "dead" at that point in his personal history. The _Gazette_ informs us that this is a Friday as well, which couldn't possibly be correct even if the 13th really had been a Friday. In any event, this is the day that Watson and Holmes are separately removed from prison. Holmes visits the Temple of the Four Orders and is later drugged by Irene. The Lord Chief Justice is murdered in his bathtub.

**November 20, 1890:** The hotel chambermaid finds Holmes. He visits the dead man's house. Elsewhere, the American Ambassador is killed. (Again, we have no newspaper for this date, but all of this obviously occurred on the day after the events of November 19.)

**November 21, 1890:** Holmes has the dead body of Dredger's more fragile companion brought to Baker Street. He and Watson deduce the location of Blackwood's base of operations and the slaughterhouse chaos ensues. (And again, there is no newspaper; however, the Ambassador's death clearly takes place on the night of the day that Holmes visits Sir Thomas's house, and all of this happens the day after.)

**November ~~20~~ 22, 1890:** Here is another major error in the timeline: When Irene meets Moriarty on the train, his newspaper (again _The Daily Graphic_ ) gives the date as November 20, 1890, and says that it is Friday again. Clearly this has to be the 22nd because it is the day after the explosion at the docks! In any event, this is also the date that Clarkie warns Holmes of the warrant for his arrest. Holmes then visits Watson in the hospital and shuts himself away in his room above the Punchbowl to re-enact the Temple's ritual.

**November ~~21~~ 23, 1890:** Per Irene's copy of _The Police Gazette_ , this is another Friday. Sigh. This should actually be the 23rd, I think. Watson and Holmes are reunited and Holmes is arrested. Holmes, Watson, and Irene foil Blackwood's plan to kill most of Parliament. After a final battle on the Tower Bridge, Blackwood hangs again. Irene tips off Holmes re: Moriarty and he takes her diamond for Mary.

**November 24-27, 1890:** Mary and Watson visit Holmes at Baker Street and he demonstrates Blackwood's method of cheating death. Clarkie informs Holmes of the murder in the sewers under Parliament. "Case reopened." (This date is a guess; Ara and I judged that it was most likely one, but possibly as many as three days after the incident at Parliament. The police would have cleared away Blackwood's contraption on the day of his death, and sewer workers probably would have found the unfortunate policeman's body the next morning--but perhaps as long as two days after his death, if the day of the attack on Parliament were indeed a Friday and they had weekends off. In retrospect, I think it unlikely that they wouldn't have worked Saturday, but knowing nothing of the work schedules of London sewage employees in the Victorian era, I cannot say...yet.)


End file.
